


終末の世界で

by kaithartic (bluedreaming)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Science Fiction, Terminal Illnesses, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-05-04 02:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5316047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedreaming/pseuds/kaithartic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I hold you and you die and then I go out to fight the army alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	終末の世界で

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to everyone for keeping me going and not feeding me to the dogs. I know I deserve it.  
> This was written for [](http://exoficpalette.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://exoficpalette.livejournal.com/)**exoficpalette** for the setting/trope combination _robot + war_.

  
  
  
Acid snow flakes drift down from the sky and land on the crumbling concrete of the city walls, tiny holes burning into the uneven surface. Yixing watches their reflection in Chanyeol's pupils, sinking into his irises. The skin around his eyes is thin, bruised, it looks like paper. Yixing doesn't feel safe touching Chanyeol anymore, but Chanyeol curls into his arms anyway, even if his skin isn't real, only synthetic flesh stretched over a gridwork of aluminum and steel that isn't warm like real skin is.  
  
"I don't care," Chanyeol always says anyway, even when his fragile skin tears at the slightest scratch, even when his bones hurt so much he can barely walk.  
  
Yixing looks up at the sky and lets the acid snow drip into his eye sockets. It doesn't hurt anyway, just reminds him about the fact that even forever is finite, surrounded by the ruin of a crumbling city, the secrets waiting beneath his skin. Yixing looks whole and Chanyeol smiles and that's all that matters.  
  
It's all that can matter.  
  
"Are they outside the gate yet?" Chanyeol asks, propped up in a chair, a soft blanket wrapped around his shoulder and tucked beneath his feet, Yixing's way of saying _please stay inside where it's safe and there are fewer sharp edges and no acid snow to burn redness into your papery skin_. Chanyeol has never been good at listening.  
  
"No," Yixing lies, "I can't see them anywhere." Chanyeol's too tired, too weak to venture outside today, and the muffled quality of the snow falling in drifts of poison insulates him from the vibrations of a multitude of metal feet, robots who have stripped themselves of their synthetic flesh and human trappings, who come seeking vengeance for an existence they reject utterly.  
  
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move," Chanyeol had read in an [old book](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1-the-story-so-far-in-the-beginning-the-universe-was), pages brittle and falling into dust as they turned, Yixing giggling despite himself, picturing people being angry for existing.  
  
That was before.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The robots are at the outer walls now, washing over the barren rock and scarred earth like drops of angry water, the kind that will kill you if you drink it. The drops of water, grains of sand, make and ocean and Yixing knows there's no leaving.  
  
He listens to Chanyeol breathing at night, the wet gurgle of liquid in his lungs, the raspy rawness of his throat, the way his heart keeps skipping to the beat of a drum that never played anything on this planet, and he knows there was no leaving anyway.  
  
He doesn't want Chanyeol to worry though, and they're already in the innermost ring of the city, collapsed buildings, rubble and decaying walls like skeleton teeth in a vast graveyard between them and the outer wall. And the outer wall is still strong. Yixing hums old songs and wheels Chanyeol out to the garden, on a day when the sky is just a little less clouded, and there's no falling snow.  
  
"I love this tree," Chanyeol says, only skin and bones folded up on the wheelchair but his eyes are bright and a smile stretches across his face as he gently reaches out to touch the bark of the old cherry tree with the tips of his fingers. Yixing looks up at the gathering buds on the tiny branches, only a few this year. Every year there are fewer and fewer and one day there will be none at all. The ground vibrates, the robots have started ramming the gate. Chanyeol is too engrossed in the tree though, and Yixing is glad.  
  
_I only want you to be happy._  
  
"Do you remember when I sat here next to you and we read old books?" Chanyeol asks suddenly, and he looks like has an idea in his head. Yixing is almost scared that he's going to suggest they go to the bookstore to buy another book and Yixing will have to try to think of a reason why they can't, a reason that doesn't involve explaining the utter desolation and ruin of the city. But Chanyeol only smiles, gesturing for Yixing to sit on the bench next to the wheelchair.  
  
"You should read me something now," he says, and his eyes are drifting shut to the soft tones of Yixing's voice, even before he can ask Yixing why he's telling a story rather than reading it. Yixing doesn't need to read the book; he has all of Chanyeol's stories saved in his head, black words stamped into the silicon chips and nanowiring of his brain.  
  
Chanyeol is sleeping, a faint tendril of wind whispering through his hair as Yixing finishes telling the story to himself.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The robots are scrambling around the ruins of the city in the dark, sharp shadows in the stark light of the moon. Yixing peers over the top of the last wall. It's tall, sturdy, no acid snow decay yet, but the steel bones inside are rotten, just like the framework under his own synthetic skin. Chanyeol, a shadow on the pale sheets as he lies in bed, propped up with pillows, is falling apart at first glance but his soul is still whole, shining through his eyes when he opens them, luminescent in the dimness.  
  
"Yixing?" he asks, and Yixing steps lightly back inside and lets the door fall quietly shut behind him, blocking out the faintest sound of metal fingers scaling the last wall.  
  
He's never had enough time, with Chanyeol.  
  
Yixing climbs into bed and ever so carefully wraps himself around Chanyeol who, as the days have worn on, only shrinks closer and closer into himself, regaining the fetal position in which he was born. Yixing presses a gentle kiss to the top of his head and holds him as he breathes out, a last rattling sigh, and doesn't breathe in again.  
  
Robots can't cry, but Yixing quietly untangles himself from the bed, from the sheets, from Chanyeol, and opens the door to face the silver faces gleaming at him in the sharp light.  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> The title is from [Casshern Sins](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Casshern_Sins_episodes) and the book quotation is cited inline.
> 
> Former comments [here](http://theblueintheday.livejournal.com/18545.html).


End file.
